Descent
by R. H. Jones
Summary: The world has been restored, but dreams of the Dark King still haunt Lily. (Sequels on Ao3.)
1. Chapter 1

Lily sleeps without dreams until awareness comes to her slowly, heavily, like floating in deep water. Around her is a blackness so complete that she feels it in her bones, cold and still, and she perceives nothing but her own body drifting in the great sea of it.

_My heart, my soul, my love_… The whispers curl around her in tendrils, caressing her fingers, her lips, her knees, creeping up her spine.

_Love?_ She questions, as she did before, and wonders that a heart so shadowed could know love at all.

_All things love that feel, Lady_.

_Love is of light_, Lily thinks, insistent.

_It is born of darkness_, he returns. _The light is full of greed, and covets all things sweet_. Lily puzzles at that and thinks of how the darkness had wished to consume the world.

She feels his laughter, cold with resentment. It rumbles in her chest and between her toes, and she understands for just a moment the emptiness of eternity. _First there was the void_, he tells her, and_ the void needed nothing. The light disturbed it, and suffering was born into existence_. Her heart clenches at his words and she thinks to tell him that she does not understand, to ask him to explain his meaning, but too soon she is being pulled away from him like a current pulling her back to shore.

* * *

Lily woke gently, turning into her pillow as the first rays of dawn fell across her face from the open window. The soft breeze that made the trees whisper outside swept a cool wave over the nape of her neck, tickling the fine hairs there and making her sigh lightly. She raised her head, squinting her eyes in the sunlight and breathing deeply the freshness of the air.

She rose as she did every day, allowing her maids to dress and dote upon her before finding her father to kiss his cheeks and squeeze his hands before slipping into the gardens. The strange dreams invaded her thoughts as she walked, dodging courtiers and scampering through back gates to find her escape from the palace grounds. Every night they'd come, every night since she'd had to descend into the realm beneath the great tree and put the world to rights after her mistake had thrown it into death and ice.

Lily sat on the forest floor, fluttering her fingers on the leaves around her. She had not called for Jack, but she knew that she did not need to. She saw the creatures of the wood notice her and greeted them as best as he had taught her, and they passed her words along until a finch landed on his knee.

She _needed_ him today, needed to lie in his arms and feel his soft kisses on her eyelids. She'd been so restless, her mind ever turning towards questions of the soul that she did not know how to ask. She had been since that terrible day so many months ago.

A few minutes later the brush shook noisily and Jack emerged, slightly out of breath. His eyes lit up as he laid them on her, and Lily gave him her brightest smile and stretched her arms in invitation. Her fingers wriggled as he jogged towards her, landing on his knees and softly pushing her back into the tall grasses until he rested on her with their noses a hair's breadth apart.

"Hello Lily," he said quietly, briefly tapping his nose against hers.

"Hello Jack," she responded, still smiling. She looked into his kind eyes, picking out all of their colors, though she knew the exact patterns of them well. _Sweet Jack,_ she thought, _I could lie in your arms forever and never have a care as long as I live._ She could, she _could_.

Lily kissed him softly, on his nose and then on his ever so slightly opened mouth. As she pulled back his eyes were still closed, upturned lips still parted. As Jack's eyes opened dreamily, he took a deep breath through his nose, smelling the sweet scent of her skin and the foliage around their heads. He kissed her once more, lingering longer, bringing a hand up to rest at her jaw and stroke his thumb against her cheek.

A sigh passed her lips as he finally pulled away and they laid like that for a long time, staring at each other and passing gentle touches and kisses between them. He brought her berries and small, tart apples when he felt the slight rumble of her empty belly against his, and when a hare approached them cautiously he coaxed it over and she stroked its silky head before it darted back through the trees. Her laughter brought his eyes from the hare back to her face and he smiled.

When the sun had nearly touched the horizon and the barest hints of pink and orange streaked the sky, he knew that she would have to leave him soon. Lily had laid her head in his lap as he sat with his back propped against a tree. Jack was stroking her hair tenderly, and she felt her mind wander to a question that had plagued her all day. "Jack?" she asked him, "What do you think love is?"

"Love?" he grinned down at her, then looked away as he tried to find his answer. Words never came to him easily. "Love is… this," he finished, swooping down and lifting her head to kiss her lips and then flutter his eyelashes on her face until she gave a giddy laugh.

_Yes_, Lily thought as she felt that familiar joy in her heart, _yes it is_.

And yet, something inside of her ached.

* * *

Lily dreams again, and this time she sees his face. She feels the suggestion of his fingers as they brush her cheek, a soft touch so full of longing that for a moment she follows it. They are still in the sea of nothingness, ebbing and flowing in serenity. He tells her of despair, of rage and of struggle. Struggle, he says, fought against invasion and persecution. He tells her that her world is a battleground.

"The void birthed Darkness in desperation to keep the light at bay," he says, "and Darkness was sculpted from the sorrow and the wrath that were the void's only possessions, gifted by the new sun."

"And what of love?" She asks.

"Peace," he responds. "Love is respite, stillness in the maelstrom. It is shelter from strife, from the pain of loneliness. To know love truly, one must know the need of it."

"And I bring you stillness? I ease your pain?"

"You do, Lady," he says simply.

* * *

The next time Lilly left to find Jack she was pensive. She sought him out of a desire for comfort, for the sense of calm and wellbeing he always brought her, the joy he sparked with his kisses.

She'd always needed him this way, she realized. Lily had found Jack just after her mother died, when she'd lost her sense of joy almost entirely. He lifted her spirits so deftly and she'd fallen instantly, madly in love with him. She'd _needed_ him then, just as she needed him today.

Lily's gait slowed as she thought to herself, wondering if Jack needed her in the same way. She considered that she did not know where he came from. She'd come close to approaching the question but had never brought herself to ask him outright, and he had never told her on his own. Many times Lily wondered if some tragedy had befallen him early in his life. Where were his parents? He'd always spoken so simply, so childishly, and upon their first meeting he had sounded as though he was struggling to remember _how_ to speak in his slow, stilted human language. Despite that, she'd never sensed in him the anguish that she felt and so had kept her own hidden away. She came to Jack for lightness and escape from the pain in her heart, and so left that piece of herself behind to join him in this forested dreamland.

Lily sighed deeply and started humming quietly, then a little louder. Singing always brought him to her as her voice echoed sweetly between the trees and the birds picked up the familiar melody, carrying it further. She hummed louder still, as clearly as she could. She couldn't bring herself to sing today. The sense of malaise that would not leave her had grown sharp and bitter in the past days and the pretty words stuck in her throat when she tried.

Luckily, the birds had caught the tune with gusto, as if sensing her need of their supportive chorus. By the time Jack reached her she was leaning against a tree, listening quietly to their twittering, soaring voices.

He approached her slowly, cautiously, as he had never done before. She jumped when his fingers brushed her cheek, though she had seen him raise his hand. Jack winced and frowned when she did, pulling away a few inches. "Why are you crying, Lily?"

"I...' Lily faltered, wiping at her own cheek, staring at her wet fingertips. "I'm sorry, Jack," she said, wrapping her arms around him. He embraced her immediately, undemanding, resting his lips in her hair. He didn't ask what she was sorry for, only held her as she clung to him, breath quiet at first and then hitching into sobs that she didn't understand in the least. She was glad he didn't ask, because she scarcely knew herself.

When she finally stilled, Jack kissed away the last of her tears and coaxed a smile from her. He led her into a glade full of dragonflies and made a flower crown for her hair, and no more mention was made of what had passed.

* * *

Darkness speaks to her again of love and other things as she rests in a bed of shadows that cradle and rock her as though she were weightless.

She asks for his name, but he has nothing to offer. Though there are many words by which he is described, none are true in the way she suggests and none were given by his creator. She addresses him simply as milord instead, and he is pleased that she addresses him at all.

He tells her stories, _such_ stories! Stories of the great above and the great below and of the places between and around which she can scarcely conceive, grand tales of woe and victory and passion. Night after night he tells her tales both witnessed and lived. He tells her tales that he was told, though he has lived long and his own past is rich enough with lore to keep her curious nature fascinated. He is also, she admits to herself, charming in his way. _Simple conversation_, he had beseeched. She did not expect to enjoy it so much.

He asks for her stories in return. He hears her guilt over the unicorns without judgement, though it was an injury to him in the end, though she betrayed him._ I value your thoughts_, he once said, and now he says so by seeking her _self_, all of the pieces of her. He claws away at the pain in her chest until she _gives it to him,_ until she rages at him for his insolence and the tears come. Then, when Lily has let her rage pass and feels her sorrows ease with such relief that she nearly weeps anew, his hot tongue is what collects the tears from her cheeks. She allows him to lap at her face, not knowing why. It's oddly soothing, if an entirely strange gesture, and she finds that here in her dream she does not mind his closeness so much. She is even sitting in his lap, she realizes, though she knows not how she got here and cannot remember seeing him so clearly, so solidly before. He has always been insubstantial.

There is a moment in which she feels the wild urge to turn within his grasp and lick him back, feel the skin stretched taught over his oddly, grotesquely beautiful cheekbone with her tongue. As it is she cannot, or perhaps does not resist when her small hands snake up the rounded, powerful muscles in his arms and stop to splay over his exposed chest. _Real_, she thinks, _he feels so real._ So real that she is caught, unable to tear her hands away from his skin as she knows… feels… _supposes_ that she should want to do. _Only a dream…_

Suddenly panic consumes her. This does not make sense, and yet it does. He is master of dreams, he has told her himself. Her dream-thoughts are muzzy, slow, and she knows this is wrong but cannot say _why_ because at this moment what she feels is the heat of him and the struggle of what she has always been taught of _goodness_ and somewhere in the back of her mind is _Jack_…

Lily is pulled awake by her turmoil, both anguished at being ripped from his embrace and frantic to get away. His face fades from her vision, full of want and loneliness and hope, and in the morning she can think of nothing but the look in his eyes as she edged to wakefulness and he whispered a soft, "Please, Lady…"

* * *

A/N: Since posting this I've edited it and completed _four_ sequels (two oneshots, one two-shot and a multi-chapter) as well as started writing a fifth, which is also multi-chapter. All of this has been taking place over on Ao3, because I like it better, and honestly it's all a bit... explicit for ffn.

The sequel titles are: _Interlude_, _Lilith Rising_, _S__hadow Dance, Black as Midnight, Black as Pitch _and _Mother of Demons, _posted currently on Ao3, username MahnaMahna.


	2. Chapter 2

Lily sat with her father at breakfast the next day, full of guilt. She'd told Jack that she would meet with him that morning, but knew that she could not face him. Excuses ran through her head, _I'll tell him I was ill, or that father asked me to go riding with him_, but realizing that she was deciding what lies to tell her most trusted companion only made her feel worse. She'd never lied to Jack before, and now, after everything they'd been through together…

"Lily darling, what troubles you so?"

Lily started, looking towards the man at the head of the table. "Nothing, father. I haven't been sleeping well."

"Then what troubles you so that you cannot sleep? I will not have my only daughter wandering my castle looking so glum, it tears my poor soul to see it."

"I'm sorry, father," she said, putting on a small smile for him.

He smiled back at her, perhaps a bit sadly. "You look so like your mother these days," he said. A long sigh escaped him then and he folded the fingers of one hand under his chin, looking at her thoughtfully. "When did you become a woman, my little princess?" Lily's smile faded.

"Father…"

"Lily, I know that a young woman your age will start to crave more than the halls of her childhood. I've kept you isolated since your mother was taken from us, and that may have been a mistake. I know that you sneak into town, and out to the forest beyond." Lily tried to respond, but he raised a hand to stay her. "Truly, Lily. I'm not angry. It's my own firm hand that led you to disobey me. Your mother's adventurous spirit is what I loved best about her, and here I sit stifling that spirit in you. It shames me to think on it. "

Lily was at a loss for words. They sat in silence for a moment before the king continued, "It seems high time for a ball, don't you say? We haven't had a ball since before your mother died."

"That sounds lovely, father," she said, trying very hard to mean it. She'd always loved the big courtly parties, but something in her father's tone twisted her gut.

"I think, my dear, that we both need something more."

"More?"

He sighed deeply once again, running a hand over his lightly graying beard. "My daughter is a woman grown. You'll marry soon, Lily, and I have no other children, no sons to inherit my land." Lily's heart thrummed an anxious tattoo behind her ribcage. _No, no, not this,_ she thought, but hadn't she known it was coming?

"And if I don't wish to marry yet? Or if I wish to marry for love, or remain in my home?"

"Lily…"

"You wish to be rid of me now, so that you can remarry. I would be in the way."

"Lily _stop_," he said sharply, then softened his tone. "I _wish_ for both of our happiness. You have been melancholy, confined here, and I have been lonely. I'd wager you have been also."

_I have Jack,_ she thought at once, but in the same moment realized that she _had_ been lonely, for some time now. _Jack has always been enough,_ she thought desperately, _how long has Jack not been enough?_

"Though you protest, I believe well that once all is said and done you will be glad for it." Her father laid his hand atop hers, and she did not pull away. "In any case, you need not marry immediately. I'm only asking that you consider suits offered. I've already had Lord Chedrick's eldest ask for your hand-"

"_Father!"_

"-and I've replied that he may attend an upcoming event so that you may evaluate him for yourself. I will not force anyone upon you, Lily. I only ask you to be reasonable."

Lily sat, taking calming breaths. He was right, she realized. She didn't want to spend her life on these grounds. She was lonely. And, looking at her ageing father, he was a powerful man with much to lose and no companion but his ornery daughter who had less and less time for him as she grew older.

"I'm sorry, father. You're right. I'll attend the ball, I'll consider my suitors. I don't mean to cause you grief." She turned her hand and clasped his, squeezing.

"Thank you, Lily," he said, relieved. "I love you. You are even more precious to me since your mother was lost." He leaned towards her, "The heart that has been broken loves more fiercely because of it. You will find a great love, I know it."

Lily's breath caught as dream images flooeed her mind, images of crimson flesh and curving ebony, images that she desperately trird to stifle.

"But Lily,"

"Yes, father?" she choked out near a whisper.

"Lord Chedrick has _very_ large tracts of land and several prolific copper mines on them."

Lily laughed. She couldn't help it, the tension of the morning ending on such a banal note pushed her into a slight fit of hysterics. She laughed in short, staccato breaths that left her eyes misty and when her father joined in she laughed harder. They finished their meal quietly, companionably, and the rest of Lily's day passed quietly also.

* * *

As soon as Lily starts to feel herself drifting in the inky sea that has been her only dreamscape for months, she opens her eyes and he is there.

He is looking at her with such intensity that she nearly feels herself blush, the fire in his eyes restrained as he stands and waits for her reaction to him. She stares at him for a long moment, all of a sudden unsure of what she had wanted to say. She had wanted to say _something_.

"You are here with me in truth, are you not?"

"Yes," he replies simply, and though it is not proof enough, she knows it is as he says. She has known since the beginning, she realizes.

"You terrify me," she says suddenly, honestly. "And you confuse me. I don't understand you, I don't understand any of this."

"I think, Lady, you understand more than you admit to," he says, and he is stepping slowly towards her, tilting his great, monstrous head close to catch her eye. The way he stands with one arm behind his back, at a bow to level himself speaks of nobility. There is elegance in him, grace in the gestures of his fearsome hands.

"I don't understand myself with you."

He is silent at that, but his long fingers sweep her jaw and his warm breath ghosts along her lips. She should be horrified at his proximity, just as she should have been before, and yet she leans closer. Something in her wants and though she knows that it isn't, she repeats to herself _only a dream, only a dream, only_…because it gives her the strength to lean in just a bit more until her lips brush against his in the softest of kisses.

He is all fire and sin, and Lily's gentle touch stirs his hunger in ways that startle her. He returns her kiss with ferocity, enveloping her in hard flesh as his arms band around her. His embrace is overwhelming- the heat, the sheer animal _need_ of it.

Lily clings to him to ground herself, to keep herself steady as her head swims. His lips are persistent, desperate, the barest tip of his tongue seeking hers, curling into her mouth. She feels feverish, dizzy, intoxicated by him. Lily finds herself squirming in his grasp, not to get away, but to pull him closer, to press more of herself against him. Her feet dangle as he lifts her and her legs wrap around his waist, and she is shocked by the heat of his bare, sculpted abdomen against the core of her. She cannot help squeezing her thighs tighter or rocking her hips _just a little _against that heat, the vibration of his answering growl sending pleasant tingles through her.

His arms are moving, touching her all over. Hands tipped in sharp claws grasp at her flesh, pulling her closer, greedy for her softness. Lily is vaguely surprised at her own behavior, but something in him calls to base desires she barely knew were within her. _Only a dream_, she thinks again, aware that she is lying to herself. Repeating it helps her push past her hesitation, helps her forget _should not_ while her arms tighten around his neck and her ankles lock more securely around his middle. It helps her forget her guilt as she kisses this Lord of Darkness as she has never kissed her forest boy, while she strokes his solid shoulders and allows him the leverage to shift her pelvis down as he pushes _up_ and suddenly the heat is _so much more_.

Her moan is sharp, startled as she feels the hardness between them. His mouth moves down, kisses at her throat, sharp fangs dragging, tongue laving a burning path to her collar bone. He mouths away what might be a garment- there are only shadows here, clothing them both- and nips hard at her shoulder, sucking at the skin and moving back to her lips.

His tongue is more forceful this time, drawing hers out in a passionate dance. Somehow he has snaked one hand between their chests and his palm is pressing up on her breast. His fingers shift until a thumb grazes her nipple, flicking over it until it tightens and the nerves are singing and she moans again, prompting another movement from his hips that steals her breath. The hand on her breast moves to her thigh, stroking upwards, shifting a skirt that she has never noticed is as light and ephemeral as smoke.

It is all too much, far too much, though she cannot seem to get enough of him. The hand on her thigh moves further and just brushes the piece of her that aches the most and she jumps, whimpering. His raw sensuality, the bestial masculinity that calls to a primal womanhood that she is only just discovering in herself is suffocating her, trying to swallow her up. Lily struggles to pull back enough to whisper, "Wait," and there is only enough time for her to catch his dilated eyes before she feels herself pulled away. His look is pained, and the noise that echoes after her into consciousness is frustration and lust and _sadness_...

* * *

Lily awoke before the sun in a sweat, sheets tangled around her legs. Immediately she pressed her hands between her thighs, trying to push down the ache there. She clenched her knees together, feeling the slip of her slick skin and trying to ignore the pounding of her heart.

She lay like that for several long minutes, willing her nerves to calm without success. When finally she gave in and touched herself in the way that her body screamed for, she tried to think of Jack. Lily had done this before, always thinking of him, imagining how his touch would make her feel, hoping that one day they would be so intimate with each other, chasing something that she didn't understand and never quite found. This time, she could scarcely keep his face in her mind before her thoughts slipped back to strong arms and a hot tongue tousling with hers, to that brief touch where her hand was now.

At once Lily stopped trying to picture Jack and let her mind wander to her dreams of the dark king crowned with horns and bathed in glistening ruby. She thought of his scorching mouth on her skin, the gentle prick of his claws. She rocked against her hand as she remembed rocking against _him_ and had a spare thought for just how much _larger_ than her he was. It was frightening and thrilling and drove her to push herself harder, faster, following sensation towards _something_ until she was breathless and tense.

Such strange thoughts to be having, and yet she could not conjure an ounce of shame.

Something inside of Lily coiled and released, the peak she had always been chasing, what the sense of urgency that drove her questing fingers had ever been pushing her towards. She squeezed her coverlet between her knees as she rolled to her side, her hips twitching subtly. It wasn't fair, really, she thought as the pulsing in her belly subsided. She'd wanted her happy ending with her hero. Tears slipped from her tired eyes before her body calmed.

When Lily rose, she stared at herself in the looking glass until she saw the bruise on her shoulder, angry red scratches framing it on either side, a jaw's width apart. _Only a dream_, she thought ironically.

She refused to let her maids dress her that day.

* * *

When Lily refused Jack's greeting kiss, he was immediately concerned. She told him, softly, that her father wished her to marry soon.

"Lily," he objected, holding up his hand. Her ring was still on it, snug on his left pinky. "You said-"

"I know what I said, Jack, and I meant it. With all my heart, I meant it." She placed her hand on his chest and he covered it with his own, though his eyes refused to lift to meet hers. She _had_ meant it, when she'd said it. "But I speak rashly, often. My father would never allow it. He is lenient in some ways, but not enough to let me marry outside of the gentry." She winced a bit and stuffed down the guilt yet again. She was _very nearly certain_ that that was still true. "Remember what I told you that day in the meadow, when you returned it to me?"

Jack looked down at the ring, thinking of her words and how now, they sounded like goodbye. "To _remember_ you by," he said resentfully, understanding.

"Yes," she replied softly, "I didn't realize then that we'd have to part this way, but I should have. I suppose I did in a fashion, after everything. Life is rarely so considerate of our desires."

Jack looked suddenly uncomfortable at her mention of their harrowing adventure. He never wished to speak of it. Lily sighed.

"Would you be happy, Jack, living in a palace, dressed in finery?"

"Lily…"

"No, Jack. Truly. Consider it. Your wild heart would break over the years and it would be my doing." He was silent, still looking downwards.

There was something else she'd told him that day. Something else that she'd known but refused to look too closely at. Something proven by her mistake with the unicorns, and shown to her again and again every night in dreams._ I learned something about myself_, she'd said, _and something about you._

"You belong _here_," she whispered, kissing his temple. "I don't."

"Lily, wait," he implored, looking up at her for the first time since their conversation had begun, "I love you."

"I know you do, Jack, and I love you. I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry," she choked out, falling against his chest. He held her as she sobbed, rubbing her back until her guilt finally pushed her away. Lily turned back towards the town without looking at him, ignoring his protests and shaking him off easily when he laid a gentle, staying hand on her elbow.


	3. Chapter 3

Lily had spent the evening with her father and written him a long letter, assuring him that she would be well but that he should not expend any effort to find her, as he would not be successful. In truth, she wasn't certain of her own words. Would she be well? She knew not what she was embarking upon truly, but the princess did know that she was ensnared. She was a burden to her father, and she felt strongly that any love she found with some young man of high standing would be shadowed eternally by her dreams, that her lord Darkness would ever crawl under her skin and burn his touch into her until she could no longer ignore him.

She could not ignore him now. And, truth be told, she did not want to. Loathe as she was to admit it, already she craved his heat, his strength, the way her blood sang at his kiss. She ached to know what else he could make her feel. Besides, who did she risk but herself? No unicorns in danger, no grand consequences to be had from this decision. Her father would be fine. He would fret, he would grieve, and he would move on. What was at stake but her immortal soul?

Under the cover of darkness, the princess crept past sleepy night watch guards in her softest slippers. Her navy cloak shielded her, scampering down halls and slipping through barely cracked doors. Lily used the hidden servants' passages, all but deserted at this time of night.

Once she made it to the kitchen gardens on the east side of the palace, she crept behind shrubs and hugged walls until she was past the castle grounds, moving through back alleys in the dormant town. Her steps were quiet and roused no suspicion as she found her way to the forest, the grass growing tall and brushing at her skirts.

The path looked different without a thick blanket of snow, but Lily wandered until the slippery memory of her trudge to the great tree led her deep into the wood. She felt eyes on her more than once and knew them to be the fair folk, looking upon her in curiosity and in judgement. They knew, Lily realized, and perhaps some of them had known for quite a while. Perhaps they had seen it from the beginning.

Though she felt as though her journey should have been longer, more arduous, she spotted the gnarled, twisting black branches of her destination well before the sun rose. The shimmer and tang in the air hinted of dark power that eased her way, pointing her feet and shortening her path. By the time she ducked her head into the yawning hollow at the base of the tree the moon was barely past it's zenith, it's rays still bright. Lily glanced once more at the sky, then turned and descended.

She stumbled into a long, dim corridor just as she remembered. This time, however, she was not aimless or unsure of her direction. Lily walked, knowing that the great hall lay somewhere beyond. She passed jewels and riches strewn carelessly about as they had been the last time, pausing only to allow the heavy doors she came upon to swing open at her approach.

He was there as she knew he would be, and yet she felt stunned, unsure of what to do next. The expression on his face looked as she felt, though surely he had known she was coming.

"My lady," he breathed, taking a step towards her. She had come all this way, left her home and made the admission of how far she was willing to go to be here, with him. Why couldn't she complete the distance, why were these last feet of stone floor such an obstacle?

"What would you grant me for coming here to you, of my own will? For staying, now that I've come?" she questioned softly.

His eyes were soft as he replied, "Your answer remains, princess. Anything."

Lily's feet were slow to move, but as she began to tread lightly towards him she spoke again, "Will you always treat me with kindness and good faith, never to love another or show me cruelty?"

"I will, princess Lily," he responded fiercely. His eyes shone with such hope at her words that she longed to lay her hands upon his face and sooth him. He had never said her name before.

"And will I be your equal in all things, beloved, never to be forsaken by you?"

"You will." His hands fisted at his sides and he took a single step forward, restraining his impulse to go to her. She could see it in him, could hear in the solemn way that he spoke that he knew. These were vows not taken lightly. She was bargaining her life to him. These oaths were matrimonial.

"Then I swear to you the same," she said with finality.

His response was quick, a harsh breath leaving him as he started towards her. Lily had not taken another step before she was in his embrace, wrapped again in the iron of his arms. His lips were upon hers, his tongue in her mouth, and she could not believe just how much _more_ he was in flesh than in dreams.

He was so much hotter, his skin through her dress and cloak made her feel like her blood would boil. His breath scorched her, and yet she wanted to feel it on more than her face. That thought made her blush, though she felt flushed to the hairline already.

His hands were pulling at her cloak and she allowed him to remove it without protest. He lifted her again, just as he had the previous night, and she wrapped her legs around him just the same. This time, however, he walked as he chased her lips, stepping through the great mirror in the room without ceremony and carrying her quickly down a path it seemed he knew well as he explored her mouth truly for the first time.

Soon enough he was laying her on a soft bed covered in furs, large and imposing. Her mouth went dry at this. She knew what came next, certainly, had allowed her curiosity to drive a longing for exactly what was about to take place. Still, she was nervous as a sparrow before first flight, and her heart seemed to beat twice as fast.

He followed her onto the bed, caressing her hip upwards, taking hold of a breast through the cloth of her dress. She had chosen burgundy for her journey, the darkest gown in her closet.

"How your heart thunders, my lady, how you shudder," he said quietly, close to her ear.

"I have never lain with a man before," she replied. His eyes closed as he dipped his head briefly, letting out a slow breath and nuzzling her neck.

"I knew as much," he said, "Your innocence lingers around you like the sweetest of perfumes. Indeed, it drives me to distraction."

"And will you still want me once you've taken it?"

His response was a possessive kiss, all tongue and teeth and breathlessness. "Eternity, my love. My plan for you is eternity," and his sharp kisses traveled downwards then, over her neck and sternum. He pulled her dress down, ripping at the cloth and tearing it open, heedless of the buttons. Lily thought briefly of her garment but decided that he could reduce it to ribbons for all she cared in that moment, especially when his tongue suddenly grazed her right nipple.

Lily moaned aloud and he hummed back at her, pleased. He traced a vicious path down her chest and belly, hotly nipping and kissing at her porcelain skin, pink with desire. The lower he got the more Lily squirmed, unsure but wanting. His hands were everywhere his mouth was not, skimming her breasts and tracing her ribs, barely pausing to tug her dress continually downwards. He finally pulled it completely from her legs along with her slippers, leaving her bare.

She half closed her legs to him, trying to calm herself and push down her shyness at being laid open. His hands came to her knees, gently parting them again. She jumped when she felt his lips back on her, this time just on the inside of her bare thigh.

His hands soothed her, rubbing up and down her legs, scraping gently with dark claws as his lips moved ever higher, closer to the place on her body that throbbed and ached when she thought too long about him, that throbbed more strongly the closer his hot breath came. When his lips finally touched her she cried out, arching up as he immediately and expertly found the center of her pleasure.

He lapped and sucked at her sensitive nub until she was a quivering mess, knees splayed and feet resting on his shoulders as she gripped the horns which caged her hips. Lily felt delirious, full of a need that she couldn't articulate. He shifted slightly, his large hands under her hips lifting so that he could push _inside_ of her, and she'd had no idea from his kisses just how unbelievably _long_ his tongue was.

It was thick and insistent, stretching her like she'd never imagined. She felt the sharp pinch of her maidenhead as he breached it without hesitation, the deep responding moan in his chest vibrating through her. The pain was brief and minimal, swallowed quickly by the pleasure which sought to drown her. In all of her exploration, she had never imagined anything might feel like this.

Lily felt her peak approaching quickly, that wondrous completion that her dreams had so recently helped her unlock. She gripped his horns tighter, pushing herself into him, to his apparent delight. He groaned again and used his thumb to rub at her while his tongue pushed further inside, stretching her body as much as he was able with the hot, writhing muscle in his mouth. Lily's hips bucked as she made inarticulate sounds of pleasure, her mind hazy and able to focus on nothing but the feeling of him.

A firm stroke of his thumb pushed her over the edge and she moaned loudly, holding his head close. She rode out the waves of her pleasure on him, stunned by the intensity of it.

When he finally pulled away she was boneless, her head light, but reaching for him still. He did hesitate this time, only for a moment. "You will have to be a ready enough, I will wait no longer," he said, beginning to strip what clothing he wore.

"Yes," she said, dazed, not quite caring what he referred to.

But then when he was bare before her she balked, for her earlier thought of his _largeness_ did not quite live up to the reality of him. Her mouth hung open just a bit as she compared him in stature to other men. Jack was barely the height of his shoulders, she thought, which were broad enough that she could not complete a circle around them with her arms. She had not been completely ignorant, for her education was thorough and young friends were the same through every class of society, but she _had_ been just ignorant enough not to consider the shape of him with too much detail. Though she feared, her insides clenched in anticipation and she felt the need in her bloom anew.

His hand caressed her cheek, nudging her head up and urging her to look at his face. She did so, meeting eyes which bore into her with arousal even as they sparked with amusement. "Yes," he echoed, somewhat smugly.

His hands urged her back and she went willingly as his lips followed. He kissed her deeply as he settled between her still parted thighs, stroking them gently and easing her knees up a bit. Lily's heart raced as she clung to him, trying to relax. He laid his thick, heavy shaft against her, rubbing, teasing, sliding his startling heat through her folds until she whimpered, squirming against him, unable to bear the anticipation and the shocks he was creating as his skin dragged across hers.

His sex finally rested against her entrance, pushing, probing, until the tip of him was nestled inside of her. Lily moaned, her face twisted in pain and pleasure. He was too big for her, _much too big_, but slowly he withdrew and pushed again, over and over, until she had accepted nearly half of his length.

He kissed her again, pushing further. The sounds she made as he struggled to keep his pace were testing his control, urging him to shove himself deep inside of her and swallow her screams as he felt her clench around him. He pushed a bit deeper still as she arched and clutched at him and made helpless noises. She was strung tight, mindless at the feeling.

He started a steadier rhythm then, a slow, dragging pace that left her restless. She was still not used to him, but the edge of pain made the pleasure all the more acute and she found herself meeting his hips with each thrust, urging him to move faster, give her all of himself. He did so gladly, wrapping his arms around her and holding her head and back as his hips snapped more harshly. Waves of intense sensation washed over her with every crash of their bodies and her ankles locked behind his lower back.

Lily screamed as he filled her roughly, clamping her teeth down on his shoulder, trying to find purchase in any manner she could. Her hands were on his back where her nails dug into his blood red flesh, scratching, clinging. Her treatment only spurred him to ride her harder, hitting every secret, sensitive place inside of her. Hot sparks shot through her skin at his every stroke, urging her back towards ecstasy.

An eternity they danced for, or so it seemed to Lily. He moved inside of her until she was dizzy, until her vision blurred and her core wound tense around him. On a downward stroke his hips tilted forward, his pelvic bone providing friction _just_ so against her and she was flying, sinking, shouting, convulsing against him as he continued to thrust.

Her lord licked at her neck, groaning but not ceasing his ruthless pace. The steel of him slid more easily into her now, the slick juices of her completion easing his way. He worked her body with his relentlessly until unexpectedly her peak came again, exploding without warning as he surged against her.

This time he followed not long after, pressing close as he pulsed inside of her, his release carrying with it the frustration and loneliness of eons. He clung to her with a deep, gravelly moan as he emptied himself, lips seeking hers yet again.

They stayed that way for some time, neither of them eager to separate. He stroked her cheeks with his sharp nose as he lay still inside of her, listening to her breath calm.

"My lady's charms are most enticing," he spoke softly, "I find myself bewitched, my body stirs for you even now." He punctuated his statement with a roll of his pelvis, demonstrating that his desire for her was building anew. Lily felt the slow trickle of his seed spill from her as he pushed his still-hard sex deep, tearing a soft noise from her throat.

"But perhaps it can wait," he said, now slowly removing himself instead. Suddenly Lily was empty. The lack of intense pressure was a relief, but also a loss which left her bereft. She whimpered quietly, squeezing his neck. "We have much time together now."

He rolled to his back and sat up a bit, resting his broad shoulders against the etchings that adorned the headboard. A wave of his hand towards a table on the far side of the room brought a chalice drifting towards them, which he plucked from the air. He blew into the empty vessel and it filled itself from the bottom with a liquid dark and thick. He handed the cup to Lily and she propped herself up on one arm to drink. There was no need to be wary of his offerings now.

The wine was rich and cool and soothed her parched throat, unlike anything she'd tasted before. "Do you like it?" he asked as she passed it to him.

"Yes," she said quietly, simply, floating in the pleasant sensations the afterglow of their lovemaking surrounded her with.

"I think you will find many things here sweet. I have such pleasures to show you." His fingers swept her jaw, a quick brush that she followed. He took a long draft from the chalice himself before turning to set it on a low table near the bed. Lily took the moment to study him, observing his long, corded limbs as they stretched across the dark sheets.

He was so strange, so inhuman. From his powerful thighs downward he was covered in sleek fur, his legs tipped with the cloven hooves of a bull. Every line of his body was taught, every piece of smooth garnet skin stretched tight over rippling muscle and sinew. When once she may have been repulsed, instead now she was drawn, shifting to lay against him with her head upon his chest. Her hands smoothed over his abdomen, tracing the grooves in his musculature and moving up to graze one of his nipples. His breast rumbled beneath her as he chucked, curling his arms around her and pulling her body flush against his.

"Rest now, Lily. I would not want to overtax you on our first night together."

True enough, her eyes were heavy, her limbs felt loose and fatigued and she was sore between the legs, still able to feel him inside of her. The though sent a hot rush of desire through her, but surely her body would protest tomorrow. She set her arm down across his chest and closed her eyes instead, placing one of her legs between his. A large hand swept down to her hip and up her back, settling between her shoulder blades.

"That is not to say that I will not overtax you on another night," he whispered, and Lily could swear she heard the smirk in his voice as she drifted off, his claws tickling down her back.

Lily awoke not long later to the dim light of the fire. She lifted her head and cast her eyes about the room as she had not done before, intent on her dark lover. The space was vast and richly appointed, shadows half-concealing oddities she could scarcely guess at. Shelves stood, lined with books and trifles, interesting baubles and bits. Art covered his walls, paintings she couldn't decipher, tapestries worn with age.

She looked over her shoulder at the hulking form next to her, his smooth chest expanding against her back as he breathed evenly. He slept still, turned towards her with one leg pinning hers to the bed and one arm crossed over her chest. His forearm rested between her breasts as he held her securely, his hand curved lightly over her neck.

Though his body faced her, his head was slightly upturned, one horn resting across the bed above them, the other stretching upwards to graze the headboard. In sleep his face was sharp and forbidding as it ever was, though the absence of his burning gaze left her less on edge while examining him.

Lily looked at his dark, shapely lips and felt a stirring within herself. She turned a little in his arms and pressed her lips to his once, firmly, lingering. When she pulled back his eyes were open but still hazy with sleep. He blinked at her slowly, his smile lazy and lopsided, showing just one sharp canine. It was… endearing.

"Such dreams to wake to," he said, "My heart's desire. Roused by a kiss, my lady in my arms." His hand moved down to grip her breast in passing as she turned towards him fully, laying her arms against his chest. He gathered her up and turned onto his back, pulling her with him, on top of him. "Come, sit up, let me look at you."

Lily did as he bade, though she felt suddenly shy of it. She settled herself atop him, the fluids of their previous coupling still inside of her, seeping out to coat his abdomen. "Such glorious beauty," he said as she straightened, meeting his eye bashfully. He swept a tendril of dark hair behind her shoulder.

"My lord is a flatterer," Lily responded, though her smile said she was pleased that he thought so. His hands ran up her thighs on either side of him, stopping to grip her hips, to roll his spine and push his firm stomach against her oversensitive sex. Lily gasped sharply. Her core clenched around nothing and she rocked forwards in return, forgetting her shyness completely.

"Nay," he responded, "the most dazzling beauty of all, more precious than any jewel I possess." His spine rolled up again, his hands pressing her more firmly as she writhed. Lily's hands roamed his chest, hungry for his skin. He bucked upwards to lift her and directed her back down, settling her not on his abdomen but his hips.

His manhood was in front of her then and she reached for it a bit uncertainly, giving it a gentle upward pull. His answering growl sent a shiver through her and she pulled at him once more, the tip grazing her navel. He pulled her forward again, settling her atop him so that her slick folds rubbed against his shaft.

Lily grabbed at his horns for balance as he shifted, grinding on her tender flesh. She was saturated already, her own desire blending with the remnants from earlier, allowing him to glide easily along her, allowing the tip of him to slide into her when he pushed up at a different angle. Lily yelped, startled.

He rubbed her hips and thighs, soothed his hands up her ribs, probing her entrance again. Lily hissed. It _hurt_ as he worked himself slowly into her, hurt as it had not last night. She was sore from it all, her body new to the sweet invasion of his, and yet she did not want him to stop. She wanted him to fill and stretch and hurt her until she couldn't stand it anymore, because with every inch of his burning heat came pleasure like she had never imagined. Even now as she cried out, overwhelmed, she could not distinguish between the pain and the beginnings of her body's rapture.

He sat up suddenly, her weight on his horns nothing to him. She was tipped off balance but he caught her, crushing her torso to his and kissing her, shifting to sit on his feet and resettling her in his lap, all while remaining inside of her. He held her tight, his hips rocking.

They stayed like that, he setting a slow, torturous pace, grinding on her until she felt like she would die from it. He was kissing her neck, biting at her softly while she moaned brokenly, squirming atop him, clinging to him. Her climax came slowly, built little by little until she rode the edge so long she was nearly in tears. When he finally took pity and started rocking more firmly, tilting his pelvis up into hers, she sobbed in relief, meeting his lips. She came apart violently, twitching and seizing and clutching at him as she screamed, as he joined her.

She felt him throb, release inside of her, and the feeling of it made her clench around him again. He held her tightly, his deep moan sending a shiver through her as they fell back into the bed, panting and spent.

"When is breakfast?" Lily asked, still breathing heavily. Her lover laughed at that, rich and full.

"It seems that my queen's appetites run high in the morning," he said, amused. He pulled a black pear from the air, it's skin supple and sweet-smelling. Lily reached for it but he pulled back. "What, no kiss for my gift?"

"Seems a perilous thing when breakfast is at stake," she responded, kissing him anyhow.

"Perilous, is it?" he said against her lips, nipping her.

"Indeed, my lord. Your kisses are the greatest of snares. Do not offer them instead of food, or I shall starve. Perilous, yes, offer me your lips or air and my life is forfeit."

He chuckled again at that, sitting up. "Then by all means, Lady, here. I do not wish you to waste away, though that you might do so for love of me fills my heart to bursting." He lifted the fruit to her lips, watching intensely as her teeth pierced the flesh.

Lily took the pear when he offered the rest, sitting up with him. Never had she tasted a fruit so succulent. "And shall you clothe me as well as feed me, another gown of shadows, perhaps? Or shall I walk your halls in the nude?" she asked boldly, her eyes shining with mischief. It had always been in her nature and she felt free with him, unbothered by how young ladies _should c_onduct themselves.

Once more he laughed, amused by her. "Anything you desire, you shall have. Though, truth be told, the image pleases me. I imagine you now, dancing through corridors, all milky skin." His face came close to hers, his nose running along her temple. Lily shuddered. "Better yet, approaching me on my chair in the great hall some dreary night, climbing astride me." Her breath caught as his fingers stroked her hip, moving around to palm her most intimate of places.

"However, my dear, you must eat," he said, removing his hand. Lily bit the pear again.

"And so life begins," she said, suddenly sober. "I will miss my father."

"Are you sorry, then?"

"No."

He was satisfied with her answer and leaned back again, content. She finished eating and lounged with him, they speaking quietly of life and the future, of their new reign together.

Above, the sun rose over the spires of a castle where the princess had gone missing. A young man nursed a broken heart in a forest glade surrounded by the folk of the wood, and a sparrow sang it's own song in the tops of the trees, unconcerned with the rest.

* * *

I've noticed a trend in the traffic stats on this story- chapter three is far and away the most viewed. My theory is that you lot are here for the smut. Now, if that happens to be the case for you but you have not yet investigated the sequels I'm telling you: the smut levels are real.

Here ya go:

Archiveofourown.

Org (slash) series (slash) 1546699

Man, don't you wish FFN wasn't so stupid about links?

Just typing "ao3 legend lilith" into google also works. :)


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